Sophisticated electronic flat panel display units, such as plasma display units, liquid crystal display (LCD) units and organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display units, are susceptible to electromagnetic (EM) disturbances, such as electrostatic discharge (ESD). ESD can cause both hard errors and soft errors in electronic display units. ESD-related hard-errors in electronic display units are errors caused by physical damage of one or more electronic components of the electronic display units, while ESD-related soft errors are errors caused by incorrect signals or data in the electronic display units. ESD-related soft errors in electronic display units include bit errors, upsets, unwanted resets etc.
Currently, there are no viable tools to locate specific areas of an electronic flat panel display unit that are susceptible to EM disturbances, such as ESD. However, electronic flat panel display units are routinely tested for ESD immunity to determine whether the display units comply with applicable International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) standards. Conventional ESD testing involves subjecting an equipment under test (EUT) to ESD using a manual ESD gun, which simulates ESD from a human or other ESD source. Using the manual ESD gun, ESD is applied to different areas of an EUT to determine whether that EUT meets the applicable IEC standards.
A significant limitation of the conventional ESD testing is that, if a flat panel display unit fails the ESD testing, the ESD test results do not provide any meaningful information on how to improve the design of that flat panel display unit with respect to ESD immunity. Thus, the ESD test results cannot be used to solve the ESD problems of that flat panel display unit.
In view of the above limitation of conventional ESD testing, there is a need for a system and method for testing the EM susceptibility, such as ESD susceptibility, of an electronic flat panel display unit to improve the design of the display unit.